Peter van der Werf,


“What is so powerful about the SDGs is that our engagement narrative has changed.” Peter van der Werf, Robeco


So if that is on climate or tobacco, how can we bring that back into the portfolio, since we exclude, for example, tobacco in our portfolios. Mason: We have excluded stocks since 1948. We have a demanding endowment level return objective, which has been RPI plus 5% during the past few years. We have exceeded that over five, 10 and 20 years. There is no question that you can have a comprehensive responsible investment approach that embraces exclusions. It can incorporate ESG factors without sacrificing returns, but you cannot look at this factor in isolation.


It is about good investment decisions across the piece, strategic asset allocation, picking the best man- agers and an alignment of interests with those managers. There is a lot to being a good investor, but being a responsible investor can be an integral part of being a good investor financially. Manuel: The answer to that question is a big barrier to responsible investing being embraced by more investors. It is hard to definitively say “yes” or “no” to it.


In some ways, the institutional investment industry is cautious, conservative, has a preference for the status quo and an over reliance on back-tested evidence demonstrating financial outcomes. Anyone waiting for definitive evidence that this will lead to better financial outcomes could miss the boat by the time it comes.


November 2019 portfolio institutional roundtable: Responsible investing 19


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